In 2012 I had the distinct honor of being asked by the legendary New York Friar’s Club, to create a cartoon character version of the club’s signature monk and a series of cartoons and animations for the official Friar’s Club website.

The briefing required animations and graphics featuring the monk in all kinds of different situations and poses to be placed on the homepage and also some special custom monks featuring caricatured faces of recognizable “brothers”.

Even the furniture such as the wooden bar and the pool table at which the Jackie Gleason monk is playing had to be recognizable.

As a previous member of the National Cartoonists Society, I had the pleasure of attending several Christmas brunches at the Los Angeles branch of the club, so it was a particular pleasure to be able to contribute to the Friar’s cause.

IMPORTANT! Some of these GIFs are showing weird boxy flashing animation on some displayswhich are NOT there in the original.

The original GIFs play nice and smoothly – you can see them by clicking on each image or by downloading them to your computer.
(This must be some kind of WordPress Bug. Sorry I can’t get rid of it here. If you know what settings I need to change, please contact me.)

Good-bye Marsdencartoons.com

It was on December 2nd, 1998 (almost 20 years ago!) that I started my first website “Marsdencartoons.com”.

It evolved over many iterations, and later for several years it also hosted the Marsdencartoons Cartoonist’s Directory which was a popular resource to find links to illustrators and cartoonists all over the world.

Since I don’t only draw cartoons but also create more “serious” illustrations and logos and character designs for various clients all over the world, I decided in 2014 to create my new homepage MARSDEN ILLUSTRATION, which you see before you and which embodies all the various facets of my work in my PORTFOLIO

For a few years it autoforwarded to my new domain, but a few months ago I let the old marsdencartoons.com domain name expire. A fresh new start.

It appears that another company has purchased the domain name marsdencartoons.com and is now putting up a website for Illustration and Graphics.
This is of course perfectly fine and quite normal I guess by Internet standards, although it would be interesting to know who the “Marsden” is who is featured in their domain name. Because one thing I can tell you is that it is NOT me.

For the record, I wanted to state categorically: that I, Ian David Marsden, am no longer the owner of the domain marsdencartoons.com, I am in no way involved in their enterprise, and am not affiliated anymore in any way with marsdencartoons.com. Any transactions with this domain will not include any involvement with me and you will not be purchasing artwork created by me.

If you wish to contact me (Ian David Marsden) regarding graphic design, illustrations or cartoons, then the only official website is this one: www.marsdenillustration.com

Thank you for your continued interest in my artwork and more from my studio very soon.

All the best,

Ian

PS: If you haven’t signed up yet for my personal newsletter, now is a good time because I am preparing the next one. (I send them out about 4 or 5 times a year with news and behind the scenes looks at some of the artwork I am currently working on)

Various drawing tutorial videos demonstrating how I work with Wacom Cintiq 21UX and Cintiq27QHD pen displays in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Manga Studio and other design software. More videos for Wacom are in production.

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